Balance yourself with yoga

If you’re like most students, you’re probably starting to feel the weight of classes bear down on you. With UVU’s yoga club, you can start to strip away that stress.

To those who’ve been living in a cave and are unfamiliar with yoga, it is a different sort of exercise that has its participants engage in various poses that can be quite difficult, depending on how much one emphasizes a particular form. It is a moving meditation that encourages a better connection with one’s body. Yoga also raises the heat in the room during these body stretches, which can be very uncomfortable. But, as Lee reminds, difficulty is a very important part of the yoga process.

“When we’re practicing yoga, were practicing how to live in our lives. You don’t react, you breathe through it. We’re in a difficult situation and were going to breathe through it, and learn how to deal with it that way and experience it fully rather than back out of it,” Lee said.

Yoga club is held every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. in PE 225. The fee amount is still undecided, but Lee says it’s likely to be in the neighborhood of $20-30 for a year-long membership, which includes a yoga mat.

Even if you’re sold on the idea that yoga could do great things for your health, you may still be intimidated by trying it out because of a less than ideal fitness level. According to Lee, this should not stop you from coming to yoga club.

“A lot of people are concerned whether they’re good enough to come to this club,” Lee said. “But it’s mixed levels, so it’s easily modified for each person at their own fitness level so they can participate.”

Though yoga may seem strange to the uninitiated, or perhaps appear as a bunch of hippie hokum, the health benefits can be incredible. As Lee points out, it can have a balancing effect on almost every aspect of your life.

“With yoga, you can achieve a well-balanced lifestyle because it affects your sleep and diet,” Lee said. “It makes you want to keep a good diet or else your workout isn’t going to go well. And by sleeping well, you can get energy off of simple foods so you don’t have to resort to the sugar in junk food.”

So on Wednesday nights, put down that pencil, pick those hands up off the keyboard and mozy over to the PE building to let loose with some yoga. Not only are the health benefits great, but it could also help your studies.

“Trying to force something is probably the slowest way to achieve something,” Lee said. “Letting yourself ease into things and really experience it and breathe is the quickest way to results, which is what yoga teaches you.”

Lee further added, “We want everyone to come. We want to fill the room and pack it full.”